Fiddleman

Breakfast: eggs (, cheese, veggies, mango salsa, chicken sausage) or Protein shakes with chia Snack: a Protein shake Lunch: chicken patty or chicken meatballs ( from Costco), seaweed salad. Sometimes left overs from a previous dinner. Snack: a chicken hotdog (about 3 oz and from Costco), seaweed wafers Dinner: lots of different " cooking light" recipes. Most revolve around chicken or shrimp, seafood salad, veggies (sautéed, grilled, steamed). My wife does her bet to help me out with dinner and does a great job. When I go out I try to evaluate menu options and pick something low in fat, carbs and calories. I do mess up on occasion but because something that looked really healthy was not! I do not eat processed, fruit or bread foods nor do I eat sweets or pastries. Seem to be ok without them and do not even think about it nor do I miss them. I get most of my core nutritional needs from a handful of different pills in the morning ( Calcium chew throughout the day). Overall I am happy with both progress and energy that this type of eating gives me after 6 months ( been eating this way from month 2). I am close to goal and am about 6.5 months out. My total loss is about 175 lb ( start 360 lb, current : 183 lb). This includes a month of weight loss before surgery. My wife has also found eating the same foods for dinner, but in larger portions, is helping her lose weight. She no longer eats the same amount (very little in fact) of bread. I can usually eat 4 oz of a protein and 1 oz of veggie. More than that and I am sliming. Not worth it. I drink 100+ ounces Water a day. Protein ends up being 120-150 grams a day. I also run 3-5 miles every other day, lift every other day and follow an intense workout with my morning shake to help recovery for next run. I love my weekly starbucks grande skinny lattee. I am definitely a coffee advocate(both my dr and NUT allow it). Hope this helps.

First time I have read that a surgeon confirmed a stretch of the sleeve here on VST. For the record books!

Sorry to report again, bit I felt I needed advice from the forum. Today. I felt pretty good on rising and decided to start back at work today. Very little is different from yesterday, but instead of relaxing with the family I am working at my home desk. No exercise today or last week and have eaten, drunk the same as yesterday. No flu meds today, but I did take my Vitamins and prescripts at 6am this morning. Around 1 pm (a little less then an hour ago), I started feeling really spacy, light headed, ears ringing loud, and focus is wanning quickly. My temperature has risen and I am getting slight chills and perspiration breaking out everywhere from neck lymph node are to forehead to chest to legs to feet. My vision is getting a little wonky also. One weired thing I noticed, and only because I am now anal about how my body feels , is that after I drank my shake this morning the cold sensation went below the usual area where I feel hot and cold in my stomach and intestines. I am not sure what to think about that following my description of afternoon episode. Should I pay attention to this or is the flu trying a last stand?

My surgical doctor also said something similar; specifically, he said it is best to wait until after 6 months post op and it is always recommended to take a PPI with the NSAID of choice to prevent ulcers. This is exactly what I did in January 2013 by having my PCP start me back on a daily ER NSAID prescription med for dealing with non-sleeve inflammation issue I have in my foot and back. These conditions were present before I had the sleeve surgery in July 2012. Always check with your doctor and understand the risks.

That actually sounds like a very scary thing to be doing with your incision. Glad it worked out for you though.

Way to go!

From your past posts, i know you tend to eat a higher carb count (100+ grams if I recall correctly). You might consider eating a low carb diet (20-30 grams), increasing the perceived effort of your work outs or increasing the quality and quantity of your Protein absorption with better Protein shakes. Try all of these, some of these or just one of these for 1 week (or longer). See if it makes a difference. For low carb diet, consider eating as organic and clean as possible. Treat all food as fuel for your body. For increasing the perceived effort of your workouts, Try HIIT cardio and strength training. HIIT can really be done with any cardio activity from rowing, to running, to using an elliptical, to walking. If a workout does not feel hard, it is not hard. Pump up your intensity for alternating intervals with recovery. This will lead to great results if done a 1-2 times a week. These suggestions may be just what you need in terms of results you can measure ( and not just with the scale). If you like the results, then you might consider adjusting your current plan, making tweaks where necessary. If you do not like the results, then you can re-evaluate at that time. Try it out and see if it works for you. You can measure success in so many ways other than the scale. Hope this helps!

You bet!

Excellent suggestion for us to try also. The sound so good and full of energy. Would it matter if we ate these after the first 3 miles or not? Sort of like how long distance runners eat their gels at certain points in a race to refuel.

I think it is a good idea to avoid the wrap as everyone above has said, but also see if you can ask them to leave the dressing or sauce off. These usually contribute to calorie, carb and fat counts in a sort of "hidden" way. If you look at the nutritional information on the grilled chicken wrap, it has on average 270 calories for 1. Are you going to have 1 or 2 per meal? Even for 1, If you are eating 5-6 times a day ( to better control blood sugar levels), this calorie count may be a little on the high side when added up over the duration of a week. I like that it has 18 g of Protein, but watch out for the high sodium count of 800 mg. The sodium is probably injected into the chicken so cannot be avoided. Given that you are with limited options because of the nature of your trip (kids love mcD and cheap), this is probably your best protein choice on the menu. To most, myself included, the McD chicken wrap looks like a healthy option. Looks can be deceiving! Something that looks healthy may end up being higher cal, high sodium, etc so it is important to try and research menu options ahead of time instead of just evaluating based on what you think is healthy. You made a good choice to ask on this forum instead of finding out a week later you gained. The fast food marketing machine has really figured out how to disguise their food. At least people are tending to wise up about it in recent years in part to publications like "The end of overeating." Eating fast food tends to make you want to eat more fast food because of added sugars, salt and fat. Eating a couple fries may trigger you to want to eat more fries, especially when everyone around you are eating them. Hope this helps. Be strong.

I second the daily use of chia seeds. In fact, I am about to have my Protein shake mixed with chia seeds now. There are a few rules I discovered: 1. Always let the soak in Water for at least 20-30 minutes before mixing them with a shake powder or anything else. The reason is the the seeds are really only effective in gelled form as a solution to regularity. Failure to do this has a couple consequences: 1a. The seeds will just pass right through because they will not sit very long in our small stomachs. 1b. The seeds will rob you of water as they pass through, leaving you dehydrated. 2. Always mix with water before use. Mixing with any kind of milk leads to non gelled seeds no matter how long you wait. I have not tried to gel the seeds with any other kind of liquid such as juice. 3. Buy from a reputable grower who is interested in your health and not just profit. They will be easier to get advice from and you will probably get more seeds for your money. I highly recommend a business called "The raw food world." The owners are extremely pleasant, down to earth and provide excellent customer service. On Amazon, you can buy 1-3 lb bags of seeds for a good price. I usually buy the 2 lb product that they offer and it lasts months.

Very good input everyone! Now I have some practical comparative analysis based on empirical evidence to share with my sister-in-law so she has a clearer picture of why the sleeve is much more beneficial over the band.

Thanks for the response.

Craig's list is a good place to look. That is how I found mine 3 years ago. Make sure that whomever you buy it from that they will deliver and install it; these are really heavy to lift with 2 people. You might also consider commercial instead of home models because the motors and belts are designed for gym use. I tend to buy older commercial Precor models when I am looking for equipment because they are built really well. I have both a commercial Precor elliptical and treadmill, each are over 10 years old, but work really well. I have put years and years of almost daily use into these. You should service them every couple years to keep them running in refurbished condition. One disadvantage to buying older models is they may not have all the programs or things like heart rate monitors, but still, these machines maintain their vales fairly well. I believe the elliptical was around 1000 and the treadmill was around 1200.

Yes, I thought it might be the fills and un fills of the band that eventually makes it too difficult to remain successful without forming new healthy habits based on a sound physical and psychological foundation. There is only so tight you can safely inflate the band and that is where good eating habits and exercise need to take over. What I like about VSG is that the restriction starts from day of surgery requiring everyone to come to terms with their eating and drinking habits immediately and progressively over the first 6 months if necessary, or face the uncomfortable consequences. I am only about 6.5 months post op, but feel that 6 months has been a good amount of time to build a new lifestyle, tweaking my strategies as I advanced through the stages. I think it takes months for a band patient to find the right restriction and if they are not careful to develop habits during that time the band may not help them because there are only so many changes a person can take on at once. I suppose the same might happen with the sleeve, but it would be harder to fail until much further out in the process. The restriction experienced between band patients and sleeve patients appears to inversely related.

One positive that came out of this flu ordeal is I lost 7 lbs this week, placing me 2 lbs below my first WLS goal of 185. YAY! This is the lightest I have been since 9th grade. Do not read this as an endorsement of the flu to lose weight. Lol. My caloric intake was so bad this last week and I got so dehydrated, I would not recommend this on my worst enemy. Now I will have to figure out if I am done losing or if I really need to go to my new goal set this week of 170. I'll need to discuss this with the nut rationalist and dr next week.

Gee, reads a little bit like a dear John letter to the newbies... Just seeing the humor in it.

I wish you the best cat tracks and hope the new vitamin plan will help you lose that last bit of weight. You are so close. I just did my first set of post op labs week before last and hoping for the best. I usually take multi, d, b12, b complex, krill, calcium chews, etc in the recommended doses by my nutritionist, but my diet is mostly absent of vegetables and completely absent of fruit. I have an appointment next week to do a review of the results.